87% of the World’s Oceans Are Dying (Source globalresearch.ca)

The world’s oceans are rapidly becoming unrecognizable as impacts from human activity strip them of marine life, according to a report published in the journal Current Biology.

In fact, just 13% of the world’s oceans have intact marine ecosystems, while the rest have been plundered and degraded.

The majority of healthy ocean space, meanwhile, exists in the high seas, outside of national marine protected areas. As a result, these sections are vulnerable to being exploited, making the creation of international treaties to protect the oceans all the more urgent, according to the Guardian. The goods news is that the United Nations is spearheading an effort to comprehensively protect the high seas later this year.

“We were astonished by just how little marine wilderness remains,” Kendall Jones, lead author of the report, told the Guardian. “The ocean is immense, covering over 70% of our planet, but we’ve managed to significantly impact almost all of this vast ecosystem.”

Oceans are being harmed in a variety of ways.

Climate change is causing global ocean temperatures to rise, changing how fish species migrate, affecting how animals reproduce, causing coral reefs to die, and unleashing dangerous pathogens.